Why Your First Duty Should Be Towards Yourself
Your first duty, obligation and responsibility is towards yourself. Don’t be misled by those who say your first duty is to your family or to community or to the land you were born in. Yes, you may care about them but your first duty is to yourself. You can’t help anyone if you yourself are miserable. A starving and sick person cannot help anyone else.
It also means at times you may need to be a little ruthless. That doesn’t mean you are a bad person, that just means you wish to survive and there is nothing wrong with trying to survive or wishing a peaceful life for yourself.
Let me share a personal, dietary example. Let’s not analyze this from an activist or ethical point of view, but rather purely from the perspective of the point I am making.
These days, I generally eat more vegetarian food, however I won’t classify myself as a vegetarian. If I am faced with a situation where clearly the vegetarian food is fat laden and unhealthy, and the non-vegetarian food is evidently the healthier and more palatable choice, I will eat the non-vegetarian food.
I am not going to be held by ideologies, if they are clearly not doing me any good at that time. I may or may not become fully vegetarian in the future, but whatever decision I make, it’s going to be out personal choice in terms of what’s best for me, not societal ideologies.
I am not going to compromise on what I feel is a healthier choice for me, for the sake of what society “thinks” I should be doing. My first duty is towards my own body because it is my body that is going to help me deal with all the external problems of the world.
For example’s sake, let’s imagine if a lion refuses to hunt out of compassion, can it survive? It has to fulfil its needs and for that it needs to hunt, but beyond that a lion may still have a “gentle” personality.
If you refuse to kill a mosquito out of compassion, don’t complain when you later get malaria. Only when you are responsible towards your own life can you think about your responsibilities towards the world.
Some people will say humans aren’t lions and other animals aren’t mosquitoes. These people have missed the point entirely.
I am not ASKING anyone to become vegetarian or vegan or non-vegetarian. This isn’t about diet; this is about doing that what is most appropriate for you in the long run. And that could be different things for different people.
In a way, what I am proposing has SOME similarities with the 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, or Overman. It’s okay, you need not worry about the pronunciation, just worry about the concept, bro.
The Übermensch is basically an individual who has rejected the common boundaries and norms of society to create his or her OWN personal set of values, morals and meaning that WORK BEST for their life.
Imagine a world where traditional structures and moral guides have collapsed. In such a world, the question arises: How do we define what is right, what is meaningful, or how to live? Nietzsche’s answer was the Übermensch, an individual who, facing the vacuum left by the absence of these traditional guides, creates new values based on their own life’s experience and insight.
The Übermensch is someone who looks at the world and decides not to follow the well-trodden path but to forge their own. This isn’t about rebelling for rebellion’s sake but about a deep, thoughtful rejection of unexamined norms in favor of a life that works for you.
By the way, don’t use this concept to decide to break the law of your land! At least don’t commit any serious violation, unless that violation is important enough to change the course of history. We are talking Nelson Mandela, Gandhi or Galileo level stuff, so please don’t put you selling drugs in the same category. Also, it’s really tough to be an Übermensch in prison. 😉
And please DO NOT confuse the idea “Your first duty is to yourself” to mean that I am saying your only duty is to yourself. Believing or practicing that is another recipe for major disaster.
Your first duty is to yourself and then you may choose to contribute in the world around you in whatever capacity you can, want or will enjoy.
